Miles to Go
by the silence in between
Summary: It starts like this: Justina has to pay the rent.  Post-series, Justina and the long road home.  Warning: abuse, prostitution, rape, suicide.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note** — This story, barring the prologue, takes place after Justina leaves San Pedro in capítulo 109. Despite Justina's many failings and evil deeds, I always thought that the narrative was perhaps a bit unfair to her, especially since she was never given a proper backstory like Rosario or Carmelo. Still, I found it interesting that Justina was perhaps the one antagonist who didn't receive a _permanently_ dreadful fate in the finale, and this fic was thus born. Please be advised that this will be a _**dark**_ story, and warnings for themes regarding abuse, abortion, suicide, rape, and prostitution all apply.

**Disclaimer** — _Mi pecado_ is the intellectual property of Televisa and Juan Osorio. The story and chapter titles of this fic are inspired by "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. I make no claim to ownership of the series or the poem, and I make no monetary profit from the publication of this story.

* * *

><p>Justina learns the most important lesson of her life when she is just five years old. She is searching for her mother, hoping to enlist her assistance in forcing her four older brothers to allow her to join their game of hide-and-seek, when she stumbles upon Mamá sitting silently on their dilapidated front stoop. Her blue-green eyes, once as captivating as Justina's in her youth but now dulled by time and disappointment, anxiously peer out into the dusk, searching for some sign, Justina knows, of her father. Before she could even talk, Justina learned that the night will go smoothly if Papá comes home from the cantina before dinner; if he still hasn't returned home before dark, though, then the night will be loud, full of shouting and shattering glass. These are the nights that Justina clutches her stuffed bunny tight against her chest and loudly cries herself to sleep in order to drown out the sounds of the skirmish beyond her thin bedroom walls.<p>

All thoughts of hide-and-seek fly out of Justina's mind upon witnessing Mamá's weary face. Instead, she takes a seat at her side and rests her head on her mother's lap in an offering of comfort. There's a wilted flower petal at their feet, and Justina picks it up and absentmindedly twirls it around in her fingers, wondering what it looked like when it was still vibrant and whole. Justina's mother once had a beautiful garden — the most beautiful garden in all of Río Blanco, everyone tells her — with the most exquisite flowers and fragrant herbs, but all that's left now are withered stems and dust; Mamá lost the time and the will to tend to it long before Justina was ever born.

Mamá lets out a sigh, one not rife with exasperation but instead heavy with sorrow, and runs her fingers gently through her baby girl's hair. "Justinita," she begins softly, her voice barely audible over the cicadas' evening song, "I need you to listen to me very carefully, mi amor."

Justina twists her spine to look up and meet her mother's sad gaze in a demonstration of her undivided attention. From inside their shabby little house, she can hear the sounds of her brothers running and shouting, still engrossed in their game. "When you choose a husband," Mamá murmurs slowly, "you must make sure that he is both wealthy and smart. Love, mi vida, will fade with time; properly managed money never will."

A frown crosses Justina's little face as every fairytale that she has ever read, the common theme of true love conquering all linking them together, flits through her brain. "But I don't understand, Mami. Why does my husband have to be wealthy and smart? Why can't I just become wealthy and smart one day, and then marry who I want?"

Her mamá lets out a light but bitter laugh. "Because you are a woman, mi amor." She pats her young daughter's cheek sadly, watching without joy as the light in her child's eyes dims with this revelation. "And to the world, a woman is only worth as much as the man she marries. Promise me that you will remember this and save yourself a world of heartache."

Justina shivers slightly as a cool breeze tousles her hair. "I promise, Mami," she breathes. "I won't forget."

Justina never forgets; she remembers her mother's words when she's thirteen and her breasts have blossomed, turning each of her male classmates into blithering idiots, and she remembers them when she's seventeen and the object of three friends' desire. No matter what she does, her mother's words are always ringing in the back of her mind, reminding her of the stakes at hand.

It takes Justina decades to realize that her mother was wrong.


	2. Dark and Deep

**Disclaimer** — _Mi pecado_ is the intellectual property of Televisa and Juan Osorio. The story and chapter titles of this fic are inspired by "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. I make no claim to ownership of the series or the poem, and I make no monetary profit from the publication of this story.

* * *

><p>It starts like this: Justina has to pay the rent.<p>

After leaving San Pedro by herself, without Luciano or Rodolfo or any other man for the first time in her post-pubescent life, Justina moves to another town in Chiapas that's far enough away from her former home that no one will come looking for her. She takes a job working as a maid in a run-down motel, finding that after spending two decades caring for her family and her home she is now qualified to do little else. She finds a rundown but cheap apartment on the other side of town, and after pawning a few pieces of jewelry for essential furniture, Justina settles uneasily into her new life.

However, she hasn't even had time to find a new boyfriend before her careful plans are ruined. The cost of gasoline skyrockets, causing food prices and bus fares to rise, and between the minimum wage that she makes at the motel and the last of the good jewelry that she bought with Gabino's money, there's not enough to pay the rent and barely enough for two meals per day.

This is when her landlord steps in. Federico eyes the plunging neckline of her dress with appreciation and offers her a deal: sex for a home.

It's not a deal that Justina hasn't tried to make before.

* * *

><p>Justina finds out too late that her landlord is also a pimp.<p>

There's a different man — men — every night. After a week, Justina loses track of how many there have been. She clings to them as they fuck her body, grunting and moaning above her. She breaks all the rules, kisses them frantically and whispers hushed pleas against their skin. Look at _me_. Want _me_. _Love me_.

She tries not to think about that last time with Rodolfo and the way that he'd held her so close, or the way that her name had rolled off his tongue like a prayer. She doesn't think about how Rodolfo had pushed into her so slowly and gently, as if he had been savoring the moment, or as if he'd remembered the violence perpetrated against her and was taking care to ensure that she wasn't hurt again. She moans loudly so that she can't think about the way he'd looked so deeply into her eyes, causing her to panic because she'd let him see too much, because she had given away her advantage and was now left at his mercy.

When Justina wakes the next morning, she is alone. A handful of pesos lie haphazardly on her bedside table.

Justina knows now how much she's worth.

* * *

><p>Days pass into weeks into months. The men all fade into one long, unremarkable blur. Justina grows numb, detached to everything.<p>

This all changes one night when, at Federico's insistence, she reluctantly agrees to accept a man whose lecherous smile ties Justina's insides into knots. She has already welcomed him into her home and locked the door when he declares that he will not be wearing a condom tonight.

Justina politely contradicts him. She begins reciting the health risks, her voice growing higher and more desperate as she lists every STI she knows. She's on _gonorrhea_ when he grows tired of her talking and wraps both of his hands around her neck. Several breathless seconds later, he gets his way.

Minutes pass into hours into days. Fatigue and nausea grip her aching body, but even if she could afford a trip to the hospital, Justina would not take it. She is too terrified to hear those words, to have it confirmed that _this_ is how she will end: beaten and alone.

Then her period doesn't appear, and Justina knows that the problem is far worse than she ever dared to imagine.

* * *

><p>She cannot keep it.<p>

Ignoring the fact that she is forty-four years old, that she is about to become a grandmother, that it's a miracle that her boys are as well-adjusted as they are after all of the shit that she put her family through, she is also quite literally poor. Her hours at the motel keep getting slashed, and Federico keeps a large chunk of what she earns each night. She hasn't bought new clothes in months and has cut back to a single pack of cigarettes per week; there's just not much more excess spending that she can eliminate, and she knows that the situation will only grow more dire when she starts to show and the men stop coming by. There's just no money for a baby, no matter how Justina works the figures in her head.

So during one of the precious periods of time that she has free, Justina gets on the bus (she'll have to skip breakfast tomorrow, but it's okay, she'll make it work) and heads to the public library. While fighting the urge to get sick, she scours the Internet for information, for figures and estimates. When she finally finds the number that she's looking for, her eyes widen; she quickly estimates the cost of a round trip ticket to Mexico City and rapidly comes to a terrible realization.

She can't afford to get rid of it.

* * *

><p>She begins to show sooner than expected. None of the nameless men that surround her constantly notice; none of them really ever <em>look<em> at her. Justina, however, notices the gentle protrusion of her lower abdomen and feels panic coils itself tightly around her lungs. She's got a jar of savings hidden away under her bed — she sold a few dresses and several pairs of shoes, and she only eats the smallest piece of fruit for breakfast — but it's still nowhere near enough, and she's only got three or four weeks left, by her estimates.

Justina wishes more than anything that Renata were still alive and here with her now, because her mind is a tangled jumble and she just really needs someone with whom she can talk, someone who will listen and wipe away her tears. She's rarely by herself anymore, but Justina is always alone, and in her lowest moments she sometimes thinks that she will die of this loneliness.

While she's scrubbing her skin in the shower, careful not to let her hands linger on her stomach any longer than necessary, Justina's thoughts wander to memories of when she was pregnant with Juliαn, and how Rodolfo would lie with his cheek against her belly for hours on end and just feel the baby kick. Everything seemed so much simpler then; she remembers thinking that, even though Rodolfo wasn't her first choice for a husband, maybe things would work out between them, that maybe they could be happy together. She can't remember how long her optimism lasted, but she's sure that it disappeared not long after Juliαn was born.

Her hand unconsciously falling to her stomach, Justina wishes with all of her heart that she could go back in time, that she could wake up and find herself _home_ again; she would take nothing for granted now. She'd happily accept being the schoolteacher's wife, and she'd shower her husband and sons with love and adoration. She's just so lonely, and she just wants someone to love, someone to need her, even...

She cannot keep it.

* * *

><p>With time running out, Justina finds herself kneeling at Federico's feet, her hand trailing up his inner thigh. "I promise, I'll pay you back as soon as I can," she coos, forcing a helpless, desperate expression onto her face. She does not have to try hard. Making her voice sound so breathless and sexy, on the other hand, once seemed easier. "Just one thousand pesos, mi amor, please."<p>

Federico strokes the top of her head as if she were a faithful pet curled up at his feet, then flashes her a kind smile that's lacking in _something_. "Don't you worry, nena," he says, and Justina exhales for what feels like the first time in weeks. "I'll take care of everything."

* * *

><p>Two nights later, Justina stands outside her apartment door, fumbling with her keys in the twilight. It takes four attempts, but she finally gets the key in the lock and lets herself into her tiny, dingy apartment. The air inside is stale, making her gag, and the light from her only lamp is dim and ineffectual. She can feel the bassline from her downstairs neighbor's stereo pounding beneath her feet.<p>

She is in the process of turning to close and bolt the door when something heavy and blunt slams into the side of her head, knocking her to the ground and leaving her in a daze. Her vision swims as she looks up, searching for her attacker, but all that she sees is a dark blur before something slams into her stomach once, twice, three times. All of the air is knocked out of her lungs and she can't _breathe_, and it hurts so badly that even if she could speak she can't remember any words; they've all left her brain. She can taste blood, bitter and tangy, filling her mouth, and the blows keep coming and coming until everything goes dark and she mercifully falls away from everything.

When she comes back to herself, it is the middle of the night. The first thing that she notices is shattered glass scattered across the floor next to her — the remnants of her jar of savings, she realizes after a moment. The second thing that Justina notices is that she is in unending, agonizing _pain_; her head throbs and her ribs and pelvis ache as if they have been cracked into hundreds of pieces. She shifts her legs, trying to see if she can get up off the floor, and becomes aware of something warm and sticky coating her thighs.

With a start, Justina understands, and before she can stop herself a sob bubbles up in her throat. She shouldn't cry, she knows, because she could never have kept it, because something so beautiful could never have bloomed from her body.

Justina cries anyway.

* * *

><p>There is too much pain for her to sleep; she remains lying on the floor for hours until the dawn's first rays peek through her window. Once she can no longer deny that morning has come, Justina slowly eases herself to her feet, gasping and crying out as her limbs scream in protest. She would love nothing more than to lie in her bed for the rest of eternity and wait for sleep to claim her, but that is no longer an option: all of her money is gone, and Justina knows that missing work at the motel will ensure that she is out of a job.<p>

After finally managing to stand more or less upright, Justina hobbles into her cramped bathroom and surveys the damage. Although her head throbs, her face is relatively untouched, minus a few shallow scratches from when she fell. Her torso, however, is like a collage of colors: black, blue, purple, red, yellow, and green all swirl together on her flesh. Further below, her legs are drenched in blood that still flows heavily.

Justina pauses to wipe away her tears with the back of her hand before beginning to clean her body and mask the visible wounds. She will not be broken by this. She will not let anyone see her cry. She will move on, and she will _get out of this_. Sorrow and pain are replaced by anger; Justina will go to work at the motel to bide her time until she finds a man to whisk her away from this hellhole, and she will show the world that it has not destroyed her. She will show the world that she is more than the cualquiera it has always declared her to be.

These optimistic plans fall apart within hours. Justina tries to work through the pain, to scrub and sweep despite the unbelievable anguish that simple breathing causes, but her torment builds and builds until her head swims and she suddenly finds herself lying prone on a bed with a kindly older woman in scrubs peering down at her.

"Do you remember what happened?" the nurse asks, placing a hand on Justina's feverish forehead. When her patient does not respond, she supplies, "You fainted while changing the sheets at the motel. I'm so sorry, but you're having a miscarriage."

Hearing the word voiced aloud for the first time sends a surge of grief through Justina's chest, and tears well up in her eyes as she thinks of all that she has lost over these past few months. The nurse looks at Justina with sympathy. "Is there someone that we can call for you, dear? Someone you'd like to be with you during this difficult time?"

Everything in Justina's body freezes at this thought. She imagines the judgment and revulsion in Josuι's eyes at the sight of her like this, upon learning that his mother is now nothing but a common whore; she envisions the horror on Juliαn's face when he realizes how close she had come to bearing another bastard child; she pictures the relief on Rodolfo's features as he thinks about how lucky he is to be free of her.

At the first opportunity that she has, Justina rips the IV out of her hand and runs.

* * *

><p>She has to get out of this town. This is the sole thought that possesses Justina's mind as she flies into her apartment and begins tearing through her closet, throwing what clothing she can into her small duffel bag. Her job at the motel is surely lost now, and she is so tired of this sham of a life that she leads while trapped under Federico's thumb. This town holds nothing for her now.<p>

What Justina tries desperately not to think about is the nurse at the hospital. She has Justina's full name, and hospital staff have ways of tracking down next of kin. If the nurse found a way to contact San Pedro, Juliαn will waste no time coming for her, and he cannot see her like _this_...

It takes Justina under two minutes to pack, and she is halfway out the door, halfway to freedom, when Federico and his unnerving smile appear before her. "You're leaving?" he asks, his tone almost amused, as he takes in the bag clasped tightly in her hand.

She takes a deep, steadying breath. "I'm sorry, Federico, but I can't stay here anymore. I'm leaving the furniture, so you can increase the next tenant's rent, but I just need to go—"

He laughs, making Justina stop abruptly. "Ay, Justinita, you can't leave just yet. I've done you a favor, after all. You owe me a debt."

Her worst suspicions confirmed, Justina's temper flares, temporarily making her forget how much her body aches. "Having someone beat me halfway to death is a favor? Fuck you, you bast—"

Without warning, Federico curls his fingers into Justina's hair and slams her head back into her door. Pain explodes in the back of her skull as bright colors dance across her vision. "I don't think you understand me, _niρa_," Federico growls, and even through the haze of pain Justina can see that his face looks almost inhuman in this moment. "You owe me a debt."

With a start, Justina realizes that these past months have not been hell; she has merely been camping outside of hell's gates.


	3. Promises to Keep

**Disclaimer** — _Mi pecado_ is the intellectual property of Televisa and Juan Osorio. The story and chapter titles of this fic are inspired by "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. I make no claim to ownership of the series or the poem, and I make no monetary profit from the publication of this story.

* * *

><p>The days, like the men, bleed into each other. Each dawn is as bleak as the next; each sunset brings the same despair.<p>

This is Justina's life now. She is an indentured servant, only she knows that her sentence is perpetual; her "debt" to Federico will never be repaid. What's worse is that the men do not care. She is but a means to an end; they care that she provides them with a release, that is all. She is interchangeable with any other warm vagina on the planet.

She tries not to think of the way her life was before, or of the future. There is no point in hoping.

* * *

><p>By the time that Justina sees the first person from her old life, she has forgotten how long she has been trapped in this one; time ceased to behave linearly long ago. She only knows that it is a Friday, because Federico has her sit in the plaza by the courthouse every Friday in an attempt to seduce stressed and tired attorneys, judges, criminals — anyone, really — into her bed, and this is what she is halfheartedly doing when she catches sight of him.<p>

At first she thinks that she is hallucinating, because Luciano does not take clients this far south, but he draws closer and _yes_, it's him. Hope, once dormant within her for so long that Justina had believed it to be dead, springs to life in her chest with a painful pang. She'd forgotten how this feels, optimism.

She strikes her best pose, trying to make herself look as alluring and desirable as possible. Their eyes meet, and she stares at her former lover with such forceful desperation, trying to make him understand without words. _Forgive me_, she wants to say. _Save me, hold me, love me, want me, please don't leave me here mi amor, mi vida__._

She thinks for a moment that he might have understood, but then in the next second something within him turns to steel. Luciano just stares right past her, like every other man in her sorry excuse for a life; he turns up his nose, as if he has smelled something foul, as if she is a rotten piece of trash sullying this lovely plaza, and just walks away, the one glimmer of light in this endless night snuffed out without another thought. And really, she thinks miserably as the ever-familiar tears begin to form yet again, why should he give her another thought? He'd worshiped her body and soul, and she'd betrayed him time after time after time...

There will be no happy endings for her, Justina realizes. She doesn't deserve them.

* * *

><p>Justina cries at her table until the sun has begun to slip beneath the horizon. With a start, she realizes that she's going to be late getting back to Federico and takes only a second to wipe her eyes and grab her bag before dashing off to the bus stop. The last bus is just leaving when she makes her breathless arrival, though; the only way back now is to walk.<p>

The road home is dark and quiet, save for the cicadas' soft song wafting over the tall, grassy fields. Justina has only her thoughts to keep her company; tonight, the men of her former life occupy her mind. Paulino was her first serious boyfriend, she recalls, but he'd been able to sense that she cared more for his status than for Paulino himself, and things had fallen apart relatively quickly. Then there was Gabino; he was already married to Inés, though, and was only interested in a passionate affair.

That had left only poor but sweet and adoring Rodolfo. He'd loved her more than any other man in her life, but, as always, she'd aimed too high: first for a wealthy man, then for a man who loved her, then for any man. She'd had perfection, wrapped in a neat little bow, in her hands, and she'd thrown it away in hopes of finding something better. Now, she's as she deserves to be: a lonely whore. A cool breeze in the otherwise still night tousles her hair like Rodolfo used to do in happier times, and Justina tearfully curses herself. If only then she'd known the price of her ambition! If only then she'd known—

Something rough and heavy clamps itself over her mouth; she tries to scream, to run, but it's all around her, crushing her, forcing her down into the tall grass with a hard bark of a laugh, and no, this is not happening, not again. This is all a dream, one of those terrible nightmares spurred by that horrible night from years past. The heavy weight on her chest that's cracking her ribs; the hot, putrid breath rushing directly into her nostrils; the sharp, splitting agony in her pelvis; it's all in her head. None of it is real.

All that she has to do is open her eyes, and she'll wake up in bed next to Rodolfo. He'll wrap his arms around her shaking shoulders and plant gentle kisses all over her face, reassuring her that her nightmare is over, and she'll sink contentedly into his warm embrace. She'll beg him over and over for his forgiveness, tell him that she loves him and that she's so sorry for everything that she's put him through, and he'll whisper that all was forgiven long ago. Then he'll tell her that he loves her, that their boys love her, that they could never want a different wife or mother, and they'll fall asleep tangled in each other's arms with the sound of the other's heartbeat to lull them to sleep, and Justina will never covet another thing, never again take her family for granted, once she opens her eyes...

It's not until she's back in her apartment, standing shell-shocked in front of her bathroom mirror, that Justina realizes that she's not dreaming. There are bruises all over her face and arms and blood, yet again, trickles down her thighs. She sees and she finally _understands_, and in the horror of that moment she screams the most terrible sound, one that seems to last an eternity and run as deep as the pain entrenched in her heart. Not one but two men have thought so little of her that they have merely used her body as they wished without permission or payment; apparently prostitution is too high an aim for her, as well.

Once her throat is raw and all of her tears are spent, Justina grips her sink with white knuckles and stares with loathing at her reflection. Virtually every resident in both Río Blanco and San Pedro once agreed that Justina had been a great beauty in her youth, but now there is only the evidence of years gone by in the mirror. Deep grooves line her weathered skin nowhere more than around her sunken, tired eyes, now as dull as her mother's once were. Looking into the mirror is like looking at the withered petals of a once vibrant blossom.

She cannot take this anymore.

* * *

><p>There is a ceiling fan above the foot of Justina's bed. It is the only ceiling fan in the apartment, though Justina has never paid it any attention; it was broken long before she moved in.<p>

It will finally serve a purpose tonight.

Her fingers tremble as she wraps her longest scarf around her slender neck and ties it there securely. With her feet firmly perched on the very edge of her bed, she spreads her arms out wide, ready to let go of everything. She has left only the briefest note behind, addressed to "my boys". "Forgive me" is all that it says; she doubts that it will ever reach Julián and Josué, but she needs to leave it behind regardless. One day, she hopes, they will forgive her for her countless sins and remember only her love, but she no longer has the strength to wait. Death, over these numerous days and months, has become her only chance for salvation; she craves it now more than anything else.

Justina takes a deep breath. She thinks of her boys when they were young, just happy little babies who smelled of everything good in the world, and of Rodolfo and the warmth of his gaze. She wonders briefly if Gabino will be waiting at hell's gates for her. She takes another, final lungful of air and lets go.

She falls.

* * *

><p>The full weight of her body transfers to her ceiling fan as she plummets through the air, and with a sharp crack and a shower of plaster the broken, useless thing pulls away neatly from the ceiling, crashing straight into her already bruised back.<p>

Justina lies on the floor in stunned silence for a few moments, uncertain at first of where she is and what has happened. Once she realizes that she's still alive, that she's failed, she screams out of rage and despair. She slams her balled fists into the mangy carpet and sobs, exhaustion creeping over her. She's just so _tired_, and all that she wants is to be done, to be free of this prison of a life.

She's going through her other options in her head — there's a tall, climbable tree next to the old motel where she used to work, and she knows that there's a bridge along the way — when she feels a familiar thumping beneath her hands. A raging meltdown is about to take her over when she suddenly realizes what song is making her whole apartment vibrate.

It's a Christmas carol — "O Come All Ye Faithful", she realizes. Memories of Julián and Josué opening their presents on Christmas morning — Rodolfo could never afford much, but they'd always been so delighted with the little that they received, happily thanking both him and her for weeks — flood her mind along with a new image: Julián with his new baby, certainly born by now, celebrating the holidays. Justina closes her eyes slowly and exhales through the sob bubbling in her throat as she finally comes to the conclusion that she has been too afraid for months to reach.

It's time to go home.


End file.
